Student Success Skills

As you go through your first semester of college you may have thought it was the most stressful time of your life. But once you start into finals week you realize that up to this point it hadn’t been too hard. Dead week is that week before finals when you are making up any work you have missed, and studying for your finals the following week.

There are several strategies to mitigate the stress that dead week and finals week will cause.

Make a detailed schedule of what you have to do and when to do it, and rigidly stick to it. Be realistic with your schedule. Use a whiteboard or calendar to make your schedule on so that you have a visual reminder of what you have yet to do and what you have accomplished.

At all costs try to avoid pulling an “all-nighter” to finish an assignment that is due the next day because this will totally drain you and set your body on a bad schedule. You have to preserve energy for future tests.

Eat properly because you will need all of the energy that you can get throughout the last 2 weeks of the semester

Don’t try to cram too much studying in one stretch of time. Yes study, but do not over do it because hours of endless studying will be useless if your mind becomes fried.

Finals week is just as stressful, and much worse, than dead week because of the weight that finals carry on your final grade. Many of the same strategies used during dead week, apply to functioning this week as well.

Here are some additional strategies to use.

Record the date, time, and location of each final on your white board.

Use campus resources to make the understanding of the material easier and quicker. This will ease the stress of studying alone as well as help you get a better understanding of the topics that are confusing you.

Use study groups to prepare for finals. They make the time more enjoyable and provide different ways to learn the subject matter.

Think of dead week and finals week as a ten day endurance event. If you really make the effort for ten days, you will avoid bad grades..

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Testimonials

The biggest improvement I have made this semester has got to be my study habits. This semester I made it my goal to study more and work harder in school. I have kept pretty well to my word up till now and I hope I can continue to do so. Another improvement that I have made this semester that I'm not too proud to say is not going out during the week. Along with studying, I also made this my goal. My dad always told me work comes before play, it's such a simple quote, but it's the truth. If I plan on doing well this semester, I am going to have to limit my "play" to the weekends and work hard during the week. With both of my improvements being said, it's likely that my grades are going to improve greatly. I need to have self-discipline in order to complete my goals until the semester is over. Discipline is something I lack and I also hope to improve as I make good habits in regards to my studies..